“I didn’t think about you at all,” Marie said, a vague shrug.
“Nothing you do shocks me. You’re really very boring.”
The truth was Marie had shocked her many times.
“It’s unprofessional. Déclassé,” Dara went on. She couldn’t stop the words from coming. “Couldn’t you control yourself at all? A half hour later and children might’ve seen.”
Marie looked puzzled, dazed.
“I never thought of that,” she said. “I never thought of that at all.”
* * *
*
Dara could have left, could have plugged her ears. She had already unpacked and repacked and unpacked her bag three times. She wanted to leave to show Marie how little she cared.
In the end, though, she merely stood there, watching Marie pull two cigarettes from the secret stash in the potted snake plant because there was no smoking at the Durant School of Dance, their mother’s oldest rule.
The matches shook in Dara’s hand.
They both lit up and Marie told everything.
* * *
*
It started two mornings ago, just after six. Unable to sleep, Marie had slunk down the spiral stairs.
She didn’t know anyone was there. No one should have been there.
She started warming up in Studio A, circling her ankles, hips, and shoulders, stretching herself.
First, she heard the echoey sound of a phone vibrating on the floor. It was coming from Studio B, from behind the plastic curtain.
Then she heard the contractor saying something, talking to someone. Talking about how he’s got a lock on something and no one’s going to fuck it up for him and she can say whatever she wants and play the holy martyr, the virgin bride, but he has the texts to—
There was something in the gruffness of his tone that set her pulse racing, that sent her on her feet. Sent her skittering to the pocket powder room, where she set her hands on the corners of the vanity and took a breath.
She could still hear the voice, his voice, and it was making her feel funny inside, like that time she stuck her hand in the hole in the wall at a haunted house and felt a snaky tongue reach her fingers.
But the voice was swiftly louder: Hold up, I’ll call you back, I think one of the sisters is here . . . and his footsteps like a monster movie.
She pressed the toilet handle gently so it barely flushed.
The cheap door popped open like a cork and he was suddenly there.
She thought maybe she let out a sharp cry of surprise, but maybe she didn’t.
It was so fast, after all, the smile on his face, his blistering cologne, the heel of his hand on her shoulder.
What —she started.
I can’t wait any longer, he said, or she did.
He twirled her around like they were dancing.
Tugging her sweatpants down, hand pressed on her leotard, and her heart going like a chop saw.
The mirror, limescaled, showed her herself and she had never seen herself look like this.
She grasped the vanity edges, bracing herself. It was so exciting, she couldn’t bear it.
When he hooked his finger around the loop of her leotard crotch, tearing it cleanly, she gasped.
Everything was going and the vanity shook and she felt so strong like she might tear it loose from its foundation.
The feeling of him, so immense, ten times too big for that tiny pocket, for tiny her, and he pushed himself into her, growling in her ear, Is this what you want?
And it turned out it was. It was, it was.
* * *
*
He assaulted you,” Dara said, her voice throaty, the cigarette blooming.
“No,” Marie said. Pausing, trying to find more words. Giving up. “No.”
* * *
*
He left first, smiling and grabbing her face for their first smeary kiss. The kiss felt more intimate than anything else, the smack of his bristle, the heat of his breath—mint and tar.
（“Oh, that kiss, wet and rough,” Marie said now, tightening her legs, her hands on her thighs.）
The door shut behind him soundlessly, the pocket open, then shut.
She sat down on the toilet seat, her right leg shaking so hard she couldn’t do anything.
Her right leg shaking like a newborn foal trying to stand, trying to make the limbs work.
The paper towel up and down her thighs, the smell of everything in that tiny space.
She sat down again.
She couldn’t stop grinning.
* * *
*
When she came out a few minutes later, she heard him tell Gaspar to go and fix the bathroom vanity. It got busted and you got no idea how.
She saw him through the plastic, a red curl on his neck, which she knew was the red curl from her own fingernail, pressing into him, gouging.